'Bored, is she? She didn't strike me so. A pleasant, bright girl. I suppose she amuses Hyacinth?'
'Yes; of course, she's not a dull old maid over forty, like me,' said
Anne.
'No-one would believe that description of you,' said Sir Charles, with a bow that was courtly but absent. As a matter of fact, he did believe it, but it wasn't true.
'If dear little Mrs Ottley,' he continued, 'married in too great a hurry, far be it from me to reproach her. I married in a hurry myself—when Hyacinth was ten.'
'And when she was eighteen you were very sorry,' said Anne in her colourless voice.
'Don't let us go into that, Miss Yeo. Of course, Hyacinth is a beautiful—responsibility. People seem to think she ought to have gone on living with us when she left school. But how was it possible? Hyacinth said she intended to live for her art, and Lady Cannon couldn't stand the scent of oils.' He glanced round the large panelled-oak room in which not a picture was to be seen. The only indication of its having ever been meant for a studio was the north light, carefully obstructed (on the grounds of unbecomingness) by gently-tinted draperies of some fabric suggesting Liberty's. 'Life wasn't worth living, trying to keep the peace!'
'But you must have missed her?'
'Still, I prefer coming to see her here. And knowing she has you with her is, after all, everything.'
He looked a question.
'Yes, she has. I mean, she seems rather—absorbed again lately,' said
Anne.